Abstract
In order to solve a series of problems brought about by rapid development of science and technology, it is necessary not only to conduct in-depth research on science and technology ethics, but also to strengthen ethics education in science and technology. China’s five technical universities (5TU) exemplify the specific situation and characteristics of ethics at Chinese technical universities, and can be compared to the situation in South Africa. China’s ethics education in the 5TU emphasizes the use of traditional ideological and cultural resources, and practical cases. The teaching methods focus on combining traditional Chinese ethics with foreign experience and teaching methods, aiming at cultivating students’ ability to solve specific problems in the real world. This paper also evaluates and reflects on the short-term and long-term effects of China’s ethics education in science and technology, revealing some special problems. Ethics education in science and technology at the 5TU is based on the principle of “unity of knowledge and behaviour”. It is hoped that China’s ethics education founded on traditional Chinese thought, can make a valuable contribution to the development of global engineering ethics.
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Notes
In 2010, inspired by the example of the “3TU Center for Ethics and Technology” (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology and Twente University, which later, with the addition of Wageningen University, has become the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology), researchers of ethics of science and technology organized the 5TU Center for Ethics and Technology in five key universities of technology in China. Extensive cooperation has been cultivated between the 5TU and 3TU Dutch universities, including joint research and collaboration on ethics education in science and technology. In 2016, with the addition of three more technical universities (Tsinghua University, South China University of Technology, and Zhejiang University), the 5TU Center for Ethics and Technology expanded to the 8TU Center for Ethics and Technology, but the contents of this paper are drawn from the original 5TU universities.
For more information about “gray goo”, see Eric Drexler’s book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Professor Jeroen van den Hoven for his generous and enlightening guidance, suggestions and review, Editor-in-chief Stephanie J. Bird and Editor Behnam Taebi for their review and editing work. This work is supported by the Major Research Project on Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education in China (Project No. 18JZD002).
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Wang, Q., Yan, P. Development of Ethics Education in Science and Technology in Technical Universities in China. Sci Eng Ethics 25, 1721–1733 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00156-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00156-6